Tagged Questions

For questions pertaining to the physiology and pathophysiology of sleep in humans and animals (e.g., sleep stages and their EEG patterns, sleep disturbances), along with psychological effects of sleep deprivation or fatigue.

Let's say that after a period of sleeping perfectly, I sleep for the following amount of hours on some consecutive days. (Let's say the optimal hours I sleep is 8 hours. For the sake of simplicity, ...

When one attempts to learn a new skill (e.g., play a guitar), it is often heard that the first hour of practice is more effective than the second. I have heard some people say that even 10 minutes of ...

What is happening to the brain when you are trying to sleep but can't? I think this is a fairly common phenomena. In a situation when you are tired and ready to sleep, why can't you switch off? It's ...

How much sleep is needed for peak cognitive performance? If some were to, for example, wake up one morning at 12:30PM, would a sleeping pill help obtain better sleep required for that performance the ...

So I was watching this youtube video (Only check 1:05 - 1:25) where it suggested we sleep because the brain needs rest to save/process all information we perceived throughout the day. I directly made ...

If brain activity is measured using EEG, is the brain more active when sleeping and dreaming of doing something or doing the same thing when wake up?
Of course, if you do exercise (eg. running) when ...

Background: After staying awake for an entire night without sleeping medication, some individuals report feeling tired while others report feeling euphoric and at some point begin to hallucinate with ...

Put it more formally, how to let your mind subconsciously work on a research problem when you are not actively thinking about it, e.g., during sleep, dinner, walking, or shower?
Often I hear stories ...

I'm curious if there is any neurological mechanism that explains why falling asleep is easier in the dark.
I recognize that this isn't true universally -- a phobia of darkness might make it easier to ...

Background motivation: Is there is a way to correct sleeping patterns to go to bed at least at midnight, not later than that? If I do not feel tired/sleepy enough, can I "prime" or "cheat" myself to ...

I know that Freud in his "Interpretation of dreams" provides a number of examples of events influencing dreams several days to several months after the event has occurred. For example, a person sees a ...

Regular split-brain patients still have some remaining connection between the hemispheres, but would it be possible for their hemispheres to fall asleep independent of the other?
What about when not ...

Some time ago I opened a question comparing drug withdrawal and sleep deprivation symptoms.
In fact, my main objective for that question was to know if there was by any chance, a possibility to live ...

After my admittedly short research I could not find information which states that if a person is disturbed while their sleeping, let's say in NREM3 phase of their sleep cycle, and wakes up and then ...

Anecdotal background
I find that regardless of what time I go to bed, or how exhausted I am, I always wake up the next morning between 5 and 6am. This is despite my alarm being consistently set for ...

I used to have really bad night terrors back in the day, where I would think I was floating and I would wake up and actually my vision would be very fuzzy - so I just want to know..
What is actually ...

During rem sleep there are observed eye movements, which seem like they would correlate with the person visualizing their dreams.
Do their eye movements actually try to follow what they're dreaming ...

After reading the article Regular sleeping hours really are good for children—if they are girls I started wondering what would be a good explanation for something such as sleep patterns have an affect ...

Does multiphasic sleep work well enough that it can be used as a replacement for monophasic sleep?
Has there been any research done on people that have used bi/polyphasic sleep for extended periods ...

Background: Some people over holiday periods or weekends get into sleep patterns that involve waking up very late in the day (e.g., 1pm), and then going to bed quite late (e.g.,, 4am). Such people can ...

Personal sleep-deprivation study:
Recently, I posed a question that I'm sure many people find tough already: "Do I really need to sleep?", and so I tested myself, I spent two days without sleeping.
...

This Skeptics question touched on the subject, but I'm more focused on studies that have been conducted under highly controlled circumstances, like a university sleep lab.
We've all heard these old ...